I will try to update the table below with the newest data and features, if any one want to help me, then you are more than welcome

I have to say that VMware could do better installation process, but ….

I have Windows 2008 R2 with MSSQL Server (64bit) already installed (will not use use the MSSQL that comes with the vCenter installation)

any way, Windows 2008 R2 is 64Bit only there is no 32Bit, here is what I found and it may help!

1. you need to make sure that the server name is no longer than 15 character.
2. Make sure the service SQL Server Agent is running, check that it is set to Automatic Startup type.
3. you must create a DSN (vCenter requires 32Bit System DSN) so that means you need to use the Native Client (MSSQL 2008) ODBC Driver (c:\Windows\SysWOW64\sqlncli10.dll)  by running %WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe then create a DSN unde System DSN.

Sofar the installation went OK, but I did not test all the functions and made sure that it works without problems!
did any one else face the same need to the steps above?

We know that Apple make fancy and good quality Computers, that keep (us) the users happy and entertained, but that does not mean they will sacrifice their profit maximizing to make us happy
In reality they are a company that runs a business, and their business aim at us (the users), to maximize their profits they have to sell more, and make sure we buy more!

What all this have to do with Apple Tablet or Touch Mac?

Apple has to make sure that we will buy the new product without affecting the already existing products, which mean they have to introduce a product that work with current products and not replacing them (as much as possible) in the same time they have to make it very attractive so we buy it.

So how Apple’s Table or Touch Mac will be (my speculations)?

• It will be easy to carry and use like an iPhone and good viewing size like a small laptop or a netbook, a screen size between 7” to 11” which makes it good and nice if not perfect to watch movies and use it to read books and documents (Apple has to take market share in the netbook market, sense it seems very successful).
• It will use the iPhone and iPod Touch OS or something similar, this platform really helped Apple to achieve good position among smart-phone’s already crowded market and it is very successful money machine for apple, with all the Apps and Music being downloaded to the iPhone and iPod Touch, this new Product will probably add the possibility to download movies, eBooks in addition to all the Apps and Music, using the same platform helps apple to use the iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s Apps on the new product.
• Apple bought PA. Semi and licensed ARM CPUs, I think we may see these CPUs in the new Apple’s Tablet or Touch Mac, the invested in low power consuming ARM CPUs and I see no good reason why they should use Intel Atom CPUs specially when ARM CPUs use less power (mean longer battery life) than Intel Atom CPUs.
• The market now getting hot for eBook Readers started by Amazon when they introduced Kindel, and all the success that fallow, Apple will love to have some profits from the eBooks with the new product specially if the size will be similar to an eBook Reader, so we may expect Apple selling eBooks through iTunes.

My speculations are based on the market, technology and “Apple’s visions”, we had good experience with Apple tactics when it comes to marketing new products, they try to make us limited with the options in the products they sell us (and here I say they try), if the people start to complain they lose some of the limitations, it happened before first with iPhone first time release where there was no SDK to develop the current cool Apps there was only web based apps, second example was the disappearing of the Firewire from the first aluminum MacBooks release which later they add the Firewaire back and they rename it to MackBook Pro!

I can see some nice stuff and some limitations will (may) be introduced in the new product (Apple Tablet or Touch Mac), I just hope that they will not put so many restrictions on the new product.

Sarmad Jari

Personally I do not think there will be any Windows 7 next year but maybe a Vista SP2 or even probably other products for sure,

Microsoft has Just released Vista and I do not think they will just wipe it out and release a new Windows, if they will try to fix their problems with Vista, they will try to fix it and patch it till it gets to the stability level that XP has today, Vista has a very bad start but now Microsoft trays to fix it and make it a good production OS.

instead we may expect a new Office that is probably 64-bit (at last) and has a lot of new stuff, some maybe for fun, we probably will be able to skin the office interface with nice styles that will be prepared by Microsoft or we will be able to make them!!! sound funny but still possible

having a 64-bit office and other products is just in time and exactly what we need, we really do need that, we have a good CPUs and 64-bit OS are available, we can get allot of RAM, any Geek wish to have more than just 4GB System so he/she can run all the application they love, and the reason why we can not have more than 4GB installed in our systems is the 32-Bit Operating Systems, 32-Bit OS is limited to 4GB only!

to solve this problem we need to use 64-Bit OS so we can have even a 16GB RAM! but what is the use of a powerful PC and a nice 64-Bit OS if the applications are not 64-Bit! sure they will run fast but not as native 64-Bit application

now the good news about the 64-Bit applications are from Adobe where the next Major release of their CS4 will be 64-Bit for Windows, and if Microsoft release their 64-Bit office I think all other companies will follow them.

let’s stay tune for a new wave of good 64-Bit applications

by using the command  vmkfstools -i "SOURCEDISKIMAGE.vmdk" "TARGETDISKIMAGE.vmdk"

another example: vmkfstools –i /pathtoTemplateVM/template.vmdk /pathtoDestinationVM/newvm.vmdk

A founder of security start-up WabiSabiLabi Ltd. was among those arrested by Milan police in connection with an ongoing spying scandal at Telecom Italia, according to published reports.

Roberto Preatoni was charged Monday with unauthorized access to computer systems and wiretapping, said the reports (in Italian). Sources confirmed he is the same Roberto Preatoni who is a founder and director of strategy at WabiSabiLabi. A representative of the security start-up declined to comment today. He said the company would send an e-mail statement later in the day.

I met Reberto Preatoni in Paranoia 2006 (Oslo – Norway) for the first time
I met him again in a Wireless-Hacking Course arranged by Watchcom & Zone-h 2007 (Oslo – Norway)

Preatoni’s company was launched in July, billing itself as an online marketplace for exploit code that could be used to hack into computer systems. Legitimate companies such as 3Com Corp. and VeriSign Inc. have paid for this type of code in the past, but WabiSabiLabi was the first open marketplace for such software. Preatoni, who spoke at Microsoft’s Blue Hat security conference just weeks ago, billed his marketplace as a mechanism that would allow independent security researchers to get paid for their work.Preatoni’s work at WabiSabiLabi apparently has nothing to do with his arrest. The trouble reportedly started with his security consulting work as a penetration tester — a security expert hired to test working networks for vulnerabilities.According to the reports, Preatoni helped staff a 10-member “Tiger Team,” ostensibly set up to test Telecom Italia’s information security system. Members of this team are now charged with hacking and spying on Carla Cico, CEO of Brasil Telecom; Kroll Inc., an investigative agency; and journalists Fausto Carioti and David Giacalone of the newspaper Libero.

In January, four others were charged with spying in connection with the scandal. They included Fabio Ghioni, vice president and security chief technology officer at Telecom Italia, and Giuliano Tavaroli, the telecom’s former head of security.

At the time of those arrests, Tiger Team members were charged with using a Trojan Horse program to steal sensitive data from the computer of Vittorio Colao, the former CEO of the Rizzoli Corriere della Sera publishing group.

The scandal has been front page news in Italy for months.

“It’s a big deal, there’s a lot of political pressure on this issue and on the general issue of wiretaps, and it’s difficult to understand how big or how criminal were the deeds of the persons involved,” said Stefano Zanero, a security consultant based in Milan, speaking via instant message. “It’s a huge mess, and it engulfs everybody who’s touched.”

Telecom Italia’s Ghioni and Preatoni were both known within the security research community. They gave a joint presentation at the Hack In The Box Security Conference in September 2006 titled “The Biggest Brother.” They have also lectured on industrial espionage at the Chaos Communication Congress.

At Hack In The Box, they argued that many security measures put in place by governments after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks have helped to strengthen control over their citizens and erode democratic freedoms. “The Internet allows you to do more effective things regarding controlling the population,” Preatoni said.

“Before, we were just being spied on,” Ghioni said, adding that governments are now using psychological operations and technology to prey upon their citizens’ fears and extend their own power.

UPDATE:
Roberto Prestoni was released, unfortunately media did not pay any attention for the release, given the impression that he is incastaty

Source:

http://www.computerworld.com/

The ability of Windows XP to save passwords for Web sites and network resources can be very convenient. Of course, it’s true that anyone with access to your computer can log into stored-credentials sites, but only if they can log onto your computer as you—so the risk is minimal for people who logoff or lock their machines when they aren’t present.

Follow these steps to access the interface where you add, remove, or edit saved passwords:

1. Click Start and select Run.
2. In the Open field, type rundll32.exe keymgr.dll, KRShowKeyMgr.
3. Once the interface with the stored usernames and passwords opens, select the entries and select Properties to view the existing information.
4. To remove a saved password, select one of the entries and select Remove. A confirmation screen will appear. Click OK and the account will be removed.
5. You can add additional saved passwords by clicking on the Add button and entering the appropriate information.
6. Repeat the steps above as needed to add, remove, or edit saved passwords.
7. When you are done using the interface click the Close button.

Here is the link to the original post:

http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/33460

1. You need to apply for Google’s API key (Sign up for a Google Maps API key).
2. Know little bit HTML and JScript.
3. Read Google’s Documentation to understand the possibilities you have.

Now first you need to have a normal HTML file, inside this file you need to create <div> and you give it a name and size (or how it will be placed) where Google Maps will be placed.

example:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″ />
<title>Testing Google Maps!</title>
</head>
<body>

<div id=”my_first_map”></div>

</body>
</html>

You can control the size of the map to take the whole possible space and define the height so it will be like this

<div id=” my_first_map ” style=”width: 100%; height: 500px”></div>

After you get your API Key you will use it in the page you created

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″ />
<title>Testing Google Maps!</title>

<script src=http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=WHAT-EVER-Google-GIVES-YOU” type=”text/javascript”></script>

</head>
<body>
<div id=” my_first_map ” style=”width: 100%; height: 500px”></div>
</body>
</html>

Your file is ready to integrate the maps

Add the following code to your page right after the jscript that contains the Google API Key
Let’s start with a full example explaining each part

<script type=”text/javascript”>
//<![CDATA[

function load() {

//Check if the browser is compatibale and rady to run the script (JScript)
if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) {

//Define Where the map will be loaded
var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("my_first_map "));

//add the map type function (Map; Satellite or Hybrid)
map.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());

//Add the Zoom-in and the Zoom-out Function
map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());

//Add the small window at the lower right corner for over viewing the map
map.addControl(new GOverviewMapControl());

//Enable the scroll wheel Zoom function so you can zoom in and out with your mouse
map.enableScrollWheelZoom();

//define the Latitude and the Longitude point to be the center of the map also define the Zoom factor
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(33.32832753459011, 44.34682309627533), 12);

//Now we add an info Window by giving it the Latitude and the Longitude point and any kind of information we like to show (you can use HTML tags)
map.openInfoWindowHtml(new GLatLng(33.32832753459011, 44.34682309627533)," <b>Hello!</b> ");

//We add a marker on the map, here we give Latitude and the Longitude point and if the marker is draggable or not.
var marker1 = new GMarker(new GLatLng(33.32832753459011, 44.34682309627533), {draggable: false});
//we add an event listener that will open an info window when you click on the marker.
GEvent.addListener(marker1, "click", function() {marker1.openInfoWindowHtml("<b>where I used to live</b>");});
//Add the marker object.
map.addOverlay(marker1)

}

}

//]]>
</script>

Hope that will help allot out there.

Click here to view the embedded video.